redlandcannibal
2020
Scratches that old school beat-em-up itch. Satisfying and doesn't overstay its welcome.
2021
This game isn't gonna be for everyone but holy cow was it made for me. Like someone used an algorithm to figure out what exact ingredients need to be in a game for me personally to get addicted to it for weeks on end.
2018
Beautiful game with a lovely and melancholy story. Fell off the puzzles about halfway through, really wish characters wouldn't walk so slowly back and forth when you need to test out different outcomes, sort of killed the mood of a lot of the levels that way. Played this on Game Pass which was great, as it is the kind of game that I enjoyed but also would not have bought on its own.
2019
Starts off fun and funny, gets to be a repetitive slog in the middle (right around when you stop being able to buy new abilities and notice that you're fighting the same high schoolers in EVERY AREA). Hibari is THE worst boss I've ever seen in a brawler. By the time we reached the last area, we just wanted it to be over. After clearing, wanted to go back and look for the statues, but because of the way New Game+ popped up and then IMMEDIATELY overwrote our save without confirming, we give up.
2018
I gave up on mobile gaming years ago once they all started to become freemium lootbox-opening waiting games. This is not one of those! This actually makes me think mobile gaming is not, actually, 100% trash! The gameplay is fairly standard Slay-the-Spire-esque deckbuilding roguelite, but it does it well enough with no weird catches (ads, microtransactions, etc.). It's pretty short but I enjoyed my time with it, worth a look for sure.
2017
Liked this enough to buy quite a few of the packs, as well as do the daily puzzles when I remember. The clickiness just feels so good. Hint system could be better (you only get three "free" to start, after that it's one ad=one hint OR pay money for a bunch, bleh) and wish I could pay a flat fee for all the packs, oh well.
Very sweet comic/illustration of three siblings in Indonesia. The art is cute and heart-warming, the story is told through the pictures (ie not dialogue), and the music is very cheerful and nice. Also it's free, so why not check it out?
Beautiful art and music, very sweet characters and writing. Less an adventure game and more an interactive storybook, so adjust expectations accordingly.
I really liked the art and comfiness of this one. Some of the puzzles are pretty out there, and I felt zero shame in opening a walkthrough to get through them. Otherwise just a really pleasant hour-and-a-half experience.
2018
Short, sentimental, and free on Steam, with beautiful art. It takes like two minutes to play, interaction is so limited that it's more of an animated storybook than a standard adventure game, so adjust expectations accordingly.
2017
I was really into this whole world until you hit like three nights in a row where you get stuck in this tedious and boring dream sequence where you jump around on dark shapes set against a dark background to find musicians. Nothing interesting story-wise about this segment, just felt like bloat. NitW excels when it's not trying to be A Video Game but then those musician dreams happen, blech. Then the last act happens and... the story kind of goes over a cliff, imo? This is one of those weird games where I'll have to personally give it a mediocre score but yet heartily recommend everyone play it at least once.
2019
One of the worst puzzle-platformers I've ever played. The puzzles are simplistic and more about fighting the awful controls than they are brainteasers, the story is wayyyyy too melodramatic and is pretty distasteful with the subject material. The one good thing the game has going for it, the atmospheric graphics, is ruined on the Switch due to rampant FPS slowdown, screen tearing, and just way too much bloom, resulting in my feeling seasick and queasy... in a side-scrolling platformer. Just an awful, regrettable experience.
2013
Frustrating controls, bland boss boss fights, and meh puzzles. On top of that, numerous technical issues: I defeated the Masked Ruby by getting him glitched onto one of the pyres, and after "defeating" him he was freed and followed me through the dungeon until I reset. The game also crashed a few times. The graphics and writing are very charming but it's just not enough to make me want to keep going. (I gave up during the Jenny Deer fight, ugh.)
2019
This is really all I want from an Animal Crossing game: relaxing, atmospheric, funny NPCs to tell me goofy stories and send me on silly quests, exploring and fishing and having a real chill time. I wish it were longer, but I also appreciate how it didn't overstay its welcome (or get so bloated with busywork like recent Animal Crossing games). Can't recommend this enough.
2020
This would've been five stars easy if it weren't for an infuriating bug(?) in Case 3 that makes it way too easy to miss a puzzle, thus barring you from getting S-rank (which unlocks more puzzles and an additional backstory cut scene). The only way to get to that puzzle is to replay the entire case, and your score resets so you have to do allllllllll the puzzles again on top of going through the dialogue since there's no fast-forward mode.